


Bandaid

by night_reveals



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_reveals/pseuds/night_reveals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Coming home hurt was normal for Stiles."</p><p>[takes place immediately after episode 2.08. Stiles comes home.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bandaid

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many feels for 2.08 I can't even articulate them all. Trying a little with this 5am self-indulgence.
> 
> If you haven't watched 2.08: this won't spoil you, but you won't understand it fully, either.

Coming home hurt was normal for Stiles. 

Even that first time with Scott in the woods, both of them looking for trouble they never actually thought they'd find, Stiles had come home with scrapes and bruises from the trees he'd pressed himself up against. After that the injuries had only accumulated: from running into danger with no regard for himself, from Derek slamming him into concrete walls, from Peter grinding the bones in his hands together, from the kanima slashing at his body. Stiles was used to being hurt, used to hiding those same hurts from his dad as he limped upstairs and hissed under the scalding water of his shower. 

Today, for once, Stiles was coming home safe and sound. No muscles in his legs ached from running; no sick-yellow bruises were beginning to bloom under his skin; no blood seeped through his shirt in awkward places. 

For once, Stiles should have been coming home whole.

He flicked on the small light in the entryway to the house, the keys to his Jeep _clink_ ing onto the table softly. He stepped further in, listening for any shuffling of papers or stifled sighs, the hallmarks of his dad staying up late to go over cases. He was a night owl just like Stiles was, just like Stiles' mom had been.

Swallowing tightly, Stiles listened for the familiar sounds of his dad working. 

He heard nothing.

From where Stiles was standing, the kitchen and family room were only a few feet away. He walked forward again, wanting to get it over with like you did with a bandaid: finish it, rip it off as fast as you could to avoid the pain, to make it hurt less.

With a final, quick step, Stiles was in the room. He saw his dad, laid out insensate on the couch with one hand curled loosely around a whiskey bottle and the other skimming the cool floor. Suddenly, Stiles didn't know why he’d thought that seeing _this_ could ever hurt less. 

The steady glow from the entranceway hit Stiles' back and his dad's front, illuminating his dad's face. A small trickle of something – drool or alcohol, what did it even matter which it was – glistened in the half-light. Stiles grabbed a tissue from the side table and wiped at his dad’s face as gently as he could. He took the empty whiskey bottle and set it on the kitchen table as he went to get a blanket. In the linen cupboard down the hall, he reached up high for a quilt. It always had been colder downstairs than it was upstairs. 

After covering his dad, Stiles pulled back and turned off the light, glancing at the bottle he’d left in the kitchen. Once he would have taken it to his car, driven a few miles away, and hurled it against a back alley wall, watching it burst into a thousand shards with unhappy glee.

Now he only grabbed the empty bottle and took it upstairs to his room, setting it next to his bed where the moon glinted off the glass, reminding him that he’d done _this_.

Torn and hurting, Stiles fell asleep.


End file.
